Rent out my condo in Seattle: the HOA checklist, RRIO and what units rent for

Start with the declaration, not the City. Every Washington condominium sits under one of three acts by the date it was created: the Horizontal Property Regimes Act (RCW 64.32) for buildings created before July 1990, the Condominium Act (RCW 64.34) for July 1990 through June 2018, and the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (RCW 64.90) for communities created after July 1, 2018 and older ones that opted in. Under all three, the declaration and the rules adopted under it bind every owner, and that is where a rental cap (a maximum share or number of units that may be leased at one time), a minimum lease term, an owner-occupancy period before leasing, and a tenant-registration requirement live. The City does not override any of them.

Three checks before you spend a dollar. First, read the leasing section of the declaration and the current rules for the cap, the minimum term (six or twelve months is typical; nearly every Seattle declaration bars stays under 30 days) and any hardship exception. Second, ask the association or its manager in writing for the count of units currently leased against the cap and whether a waitlist exists; if the cap is full, your name goes on the list in order of request, and the answer tells you whether to plan a lease or a sale this year. Third, confirm the procedure: most buildings require a copy of the signed lease, the tenant's contact details and vehicle, and a lease addendum binding the tenant to the rules, within a set number of days of move-in.

If you bought in the last few years you already hold the documents: the declaration, bylaws and rules are exhibits to the resale certificate (Form 27 under RCW 64.34.425, Form 27CIC under RCW 64.90.640) delivered during your purchase, and the certificate itself states whether the association has adopted leasing restrictions; our resale certificate review guide walks through where each item sits. If the closing file is gone, a unit owner may examine and copy the association's records, the declaration and rules included (RCW 64.90.495; RCW 64.34.372 for older buildings), and the manager will send them on request.

Then the City. Seattle's Rental Registration and Inspection Ordinance (RRIO, SMC 22.214) requires every rental property in the city to be registered before it is rented, and a single condominium unit is a rental property: you register your unit, not the building. As of January 2026 the fee is $126 per property for the first unit, valid two years, and the unit is inspected at least once every 5 to 10 years against the RRIO Checklist (a City inspector is $241.50; a qualified private inspector sets their own price plus a $63 filing fee). Unregistered owners face a $52.50 late fee and civil penalties that reach $500 a day, and Just Cause makes RRIO compliance a condition of ending a tenancy, so register before the listing goes up. Short stays under 30 nights are a separate licence track and outside this page; a year-round lease is a long-term rental by definition.

These are the newest condominium rentals active on the Northwest Multiple Listing Service in each city as their brokerages listed them, refreshed every hour, with the asking rent and bedrooms as reported. They are the comps a tenant sees the same afternoon you list, which makes them the comps that set your week one. Open any card for the building, the floor plan and the dues-paid items in the remarks.

The full rental inventory by city, with filters, is on homes for rent; the monthly medians and the year-over-year line are on the Seattle rental market report, the Bellevue report and the Kirkland report.

Bellevue has no rental registration or inspection program; its rentals page sets zoning limits only, and a long-term rental is any occupancy of 30 days or longer under the Land Use Code. What the city does require is a business licence for anyone with $4,000 or more a year in gross income from activity inside the city, which a rented unit clears in the first two months: the 2026 registration fee is $119 through FileLocal, it does not expire, and a Washington state business licence comes first. Bellevue's B&O tax is separate; owners reporting $215,000 or less in 2026 taxable receipts are exempt from the gross-receipts tax but still file the return.

Short stays are where Bellevue treats a condo differently from a house. A unit in a condominium or planned development can be used for stays under 30 nights only after a Short-Term Stay Use Registration Notice is filed with Development Services, and the code limits those to five units and 20% of the units in the development (LUC 20.20.800), on top of whatever the declaration says, which in most downtown towers is a flat bar. For an owner who has moved away the compliant income is a 12-month lease, or a furnished stay of 30 days or more where the declaration allows it.

The association layer is the same as Seattle's: the declaration decides the cap, the minimum term and the registration of your tenant with the building, and the downtown towers enforce move-in scheduling through the concierge. Bellevue follows the state's rules on notice (90 days), deposits and just cause with no city tier on top; the Bellevue landlord laws page has the full set, and rent out my house in Bellevue covers the single-family version.

You do, or your manager does; the tenant cannot. The association's relationship is with the owner, so the building's steps run through you: the tenant-registration form or lease addendum the rules require (a copy of the signed lease, the tenant's contact details, vehicle and parking stall), the move-in reservation for the elevator and loading dock with the building's deposit or fee, key fobs, garage remotes and mailbox keys issued in your name and signed for, and the parking and storage assignments written into the lease exactly as the association records them. A move-in that happens before the building is told is the most common fine we see, and the fine bills the owner.

Seattle shapes who pays for it. Under SMC 7.24 the non-refundable move-in fees a Seattle tenant can be charged are limited to tenant screening and cleaning, and to 10% of one month's rent inside the one-month total, so the building's move-in fee or elevator deposit is an owner cost, priced into the rent, not a line on the tenant's move-in statement. The same cap holds the security deposit plus every fee to one month; a fob or remote deposit the building requires from the tenant counts toward it.

Two more items unit owners miss. Insurance: your HO-6 unit policy is written for an owner-occupant, so switch it to a landlord form before a tenant has keys, confirm what the master policy covers and what deductible the association can allocate to a unit after a loss, and require renter's insurance in the lease. Conduct: the association enforces its rules against the owner, so the lease addendum that binds the tenant to the rules, with the fine schedule attached, is what lets you recover a noise or parking fine rather than absorb it. Under Full Property Management Grisel's team runs every one of these steps with the building's manager, and the tenant's point of contact for the building is us.

Run both numbers before you decide, with one team: RexMont manages rentals and lists condos, so the rent read and the net-proceeds read come from the same desk with no incentive to push you either way. On a unit the arithmetic has one more line than a house: dues. Renting tends to win when the home carries a low-rate mortgage and cash-flows at market rent after dues, the 7% management fee ($200 minimum), the $600 leasing fee and a vacancy allowance; selling tends to win when the dues and a coming special assessment eat the yield, when the building's cap is full and the waitlist is long, or when the tax clock below is about to run out.

Under 26 U.S.C. § 121 you can exclude up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 filing jointly) when you have owned and lived in the home for at least two of the five years before the sale, so a home you move out of today keeps that exclusion for roughly three more years as a rental and loses it after; this is not tax advice, and your CPA runs the dates on your return.

The clock is the part owners miss. Move out in 2026, rent the unit, and the two-of-five-years test is still met through roughly 2029; rent it a fourth year and the exclusion on the gain is gone unless you move back in. Getting the unit back to sell is a Just Cause question in Seattle: owner move-in is a listed cause with 90 days' written notice, and a term lease timed to your sale date is the cleaner route on a unit, since a condo with a tenant in place sells to the investor pool rather than to the owner-occupant who pays the most for it. The capital-gains clock page walks the window month by month; the sell side is on sell my home in Seattle and, once it is a rental, selling a home with tenants in Seattle.